Data Principal Technical Consultant
About The Position
AHEAD builds platforms for digital business. By weaving together advances in cloud infrastructure, automation and analytics, and software delivery, we help enterprises deliver on the promise of digital transformation. At AHEAD, we prioritize creating a culture of belonging, where all perspectives and voices are represented, valued, respected, and heard. We create spaces to empower everyone to speak up, make change, and drive the culture at AHEAD. We are an equal opportunity employer, and do not discriminate based on an individual's race, national origin, color, gender, gender identity, gender expression, sexual orientation, religion, age, disability, marital status, or any other protected characteristic under applicable law, whether actual or perceived. We embrace all candidates that will contribute to the diversification and enrichment of ideas and perspectives at AHEAD. The Principal Technical Consultant is the senior technical leader responsible for architectural leadership, technical oversight, solution governance, and engineering direction across complex client engagements. Working closely with the Principal Consultant (Engagement Lead), this role ensures solutions are strategically aligned, architecturally sound, scalable, secure, and successfully delivered. Principal Technical Consultants provide leadership across data, analytics, AI, cloud, governance, and modern data platform initiatives by shaping solution strategy, coaching engineering teams, resolving complex technical challenges, and ensuring delivery quality throughout the engagement lifecycle. While they remain hands-on when appropriate, their primary responsibility is enabling delivery teams through technical leadership, architectural governance, engineering excellence, risk management, and consultative guidance rather than serving as the primary individual contributor. Beyond client delivery, Principal Technical Consultants strengthen the Data Practice by developing technical talent, advancing delivery methodologies, improving reusable assets, driving innovation, supporting business development, and contributing to the long-term growth of AHEAD’s technical capabilities.
Requirements
- Bachelor’s degree in Computer Science, Engineering, Information Systems, Mathematics, Data Science, or a related technical discipline.
- Typically 12–15+ years of experience designing and delivering enterprise data, analytics, AI, cloud, or digital transformation solutions.
- Minimum seven years of consulting or professional services experience leading technical delivery for complex enterprise engagements.
- Demonstrated success as a Technical Lead, Solution Architect, Principal Architect, or senior engineering leader on large-scale transformation initiatives.
- Deep expertise in modern data platforms, cloud ecosystems, data engineering, enterprise architecture, AI, analytics, governance, integration, and distributed systems.
- Experience leading architecture reviews, technical governance, engineering standards, and enterprise solution design.
- Strong communication, facilitation, consulting, mentoring, and stakeholder management skills, with the ability to influence executive and technical audiences.
Nice To Haves
- Master’s degree in Computer Science, Engineering, or a related technical field.
- Professional certifications in Snowflake, Databricks, Microsoft Fabric, Azure, AWS, Google Cloud Platform, Kubernetes, or other enterprise technologies.
- Experience leading enterprise modernization, AI adoption, cloud migration, data platform transformation, or enterprise architecture initiatives.
- Experience developing technical offerings, reference architectures, engineering frameworks, reusable IP, or practice enablement assets.
Responsibilities
- Serve as the senior technical leader across complex client engagements, providing architectural direction and technical oversight throughout the delivery lifecycle.
- Partner with the Principal Consultant and Project Manager to align technical execution with business objectives, delivery plans, and client expectations.
- Establish technical strategy, solution architecture, integration approaches, implementation standards, and engineering best practices.
- Review and approve technical designs, architectures, code quality, data models, integrations, and engineering deliverables.
- Guide engineering teams through complex technical challenges while ensuring consistency across multiple workstreams.
- Proactively identify technical risks, architectural concerns, performance issues, and implementation challenges, and develop mitigation strategies before they affect delivery.
- Act as the primary technical escalation point for delivery teams, providing guidance on complex issues and critical client situations.
- Ensure solutions are scalable, secure, maintainable, operationally supportable, and aligned with enterprise architecture standards.
- Lead technical workshops, architecture reviews, design sessions, proof of concept efforts, and executive technical presentations.
- Maintain accountability for technical quality, engineering excellence, and successful technical outcomes.
- Partner with Client Directors, Principal Consultants, and Solution Architects during discovery, assessments, and solution development.
- Lead technical discovery workshops and architecture assessments that shape client transformation strategies.
- Develop solution architectures, technical approaches, estimates, implementation strategies, and technical proposals.
- Communicate technical concepts effectively to executive, business, and technical audiences.
- Identify opportunities to expand client engagements through additional capabilities, modern architectures, and emerging technologies.
- Ensure proposed solutions balance business value, technical feasibility, delivery complexity, cost, and long-term maintainability.
- Drive the evolution of technical standards, reference architectures, engineering frameworks, reusable accelerators, and delivery best practices.
- Serve as a recognized technical leader across modern data platforms, cloud technologies, AI, governance, and analytics.
- Mentor and coach Technical Consultants, Senior Technical Consultants, and Solution Architects through technical reviews, architecture guidance, and career development.
- Support recruiting, interviewing, onboarding, certification planning, technical enablement, and capability development.
- Lead innovation initiatives, evaluate emerging technologies, and contribute to technical thought leadership across the Data Practice.
- Promote engineering excellence, collaboration, knowledge sharing, and continuous improvement across the organization.
Benefits
- Medical, Dental, and Vision Insurance
- 401(k)
- Paid company holidays
- Paid time off
- Paid parental and caregiver leave
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What This Job Offers
Job Type
Full-time
Career Level
Senior
